Equal
by MusicalDaydream
Summary: For Namine, love is like sweetener... extremely sweet with a bitter aftertaste. [RoxasxNamine]


A/N: 'Ello there! I come bearing another one-shot for you people. I actually kind of wanted for this to be the 2nd part of Shenandoah, since well, Namine's diabetic in both one-shots & The Music In Our Hearts, but I loved Shenandoah so much that I didn't want it to have a bitter ending. Not that this has a completely bitter ending, but it's a lot bitterer than the light-heartedness of Shenandoah. So… yeah. Not really sure if the title fits the story, but I wanted the name of a sweetener. XDDD

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, although I would like to. I don't own Equal sweetener, but I really wouldn't care to.

Namine opened a packet of Equal as she stared into her cup of lemonade. How depressing that her family never added sugar to their lemonade until it was poured into their cups- just for Namine.

There wasn't a time that she could remember when she wasn't diabetic. According to her mother, she wasn't born with diabetes, but had gotten them early in life, therefore seeming like she had them her whole life. She hated having a random sickness that no one else had ever come across.

In Kindergarten, her happy-go-lucky teacher had made the mistake of giving Namine a piece of candy for answering a question correctly. After Namine had digested it, she was sent to the hospital. It was her one and only taste of pure sugar in her lifetime. After that experience, she refused any candy that teachers had offered her, even if it was sugar-free. Every year during Halloween, Namine divide the candy that she had amongst her best friends that she went trick-or-treating with. In return, they would buy her a bag of sugar free candy.

And now, after sixteen years of her life, she would have thought that she would have gotten used to it.

She hadn't. Every time she had a diet soda at school, people would approach her and ask her if she was being anorexic. She had just wanted to punch those people in the face for being so ignorant. But she also had to show that she had more self control than short-tempered people, so she just held back and told them of her illness. She could tell that they didn't listen to what she had to say.

Drowning in her thoughts, Namine lazily poured the whole packet of Equal into her cup. She hated the taste of it- although she should have been grateful that there was such thing as sweetener. It was a disgusting, sickly sweet taste that just left bitterness in her mouth afterwards. Sometimes she thought that drinking sour lemonade would be better than having to taste the disgusting artificial crystals along with it.

Namine's mind wandered back to her thoughts. She hadn't ever known another diabetic before... until she met him. She had always thought that she was alone, at least in that sense. That was in Junior High... when he moved here.

She hadn't known hat he was diabetic, until he refused sugary candy in class.

Then she realized that she wasn't alone anymore. There were other people like her in the world.

Maybe he noticed that she always refused sugar, also. But she didn't think that he really knew the little fact about her until she met him at the nurse's office to get her daily insulin shot.

Although she had tens of thousands of insulin shots by then, she still shook every time she brought the sharp needle to her arm, fearing that she would mess up and send herself to the hospital.

He had noticed her shaking then. "New to this?" He asked, knowing very well that some people developed diabetes later than others.

"N-no," she shook.

"Do you need any help?" He looked at her with his bright blue eyes.

Her shaking with the needle was enough of an answer to him. He gently took her shot from her into his own hands. "Hold still," he murmured.

She tore away from his gaze, looking in the other direction in the nurse's wall. She felt his hand hold her arm still and then the needle stick through her skin. She slightly winced, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as when she did it herself.

"That wasn't too bad, was it?" He smiled at her.

Namine smiled back, her heart suddenly beating quicker than she hoped it would. She had always looked at the back of his blonde hair in class, but had hardly ever seen his face.

"I'm Roxas, by the way." He stuck out his hand for her to shake. She shyly shook it.

"I'm Namine," she said before she paused. "Thank you."

"It was nothing."

That's how their relationship started. After that incident, Roxas always showed up at the nurse's office the same time that she did for some reason. She would always be nervously shaking from his gaze her needle. Maybe that's why Roxas always ended up giving her the shot after he did his own.

We had each other for two years... Namine thought to herself, taking an unnaturally long time to stir in the Equal. Couldn't you be happy with that? Her conscience scolded her.

No, she argued back. Because it's my fault.

High school brought changes for them both. Roxas had gone to Europe and come back with a completely different outlook on life. Namine had stopped needing him to give her shots.

And, well, before, she hadn't been bold enough to go anywhere with him. He'd ask her countless times to different places, from the park to the movies to his home. The only time she didn't refuse was when he asked her to the school dance.

He must have been tired from me shrugging away from him, Namine thought as small tear dripped into her lemonade.

Because he moved on. He moved on to flirt and have fun with other girls, since Namine signaled to him that she didn't need him anymore...

Even though she did.

And then, a year later- a year of silent treatment, he moved away.

Without even saying goodbye to her.

It was a bitter ending, despite all of the sweet acts Roxas had done for her before.

And she never told him how she really felt. How she felt a tingle up her spine every time he told her to hold still for a shot. How the way that she played with his hair was the only way for her express her feelings to him. And, most of all, how he would randomly give her bursts of affection, even though she usually pushed away out of embarrassment.

"It IS my fault..." more tears streamed down her eyes from realization.

She heard the doorbell. "I can't go answer it while I'm such a mess..." she moaned to herself, but walked to the front door out of duty. She was the only person at home, after all.

She turned the knob of the door, only to reveal the one person that had been on her mind for the past few years.

-

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